"What your beliefs are about money creates your actions. And the problem is some of us have bad beliefs.” There are something deeper behind Dave Ramsey's ideas, a spiritual side is vital to how he found financial peace.

Michael De Groote, Deseret NewsEditor’s note: During the question and answer portions of this article, questions have been edited for length and clarity.

Twenty-five years ago, Dave Ramsey turned the hot water up and stood in the shower, the stream blasting into his face, mixing with his tears and the terror of financial ruin. “We were so scared we didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I would just stand there and cry.”

Ramsey was a hotshot real estate investor and had borrowed his way into about $4 million in properties in the Nashville area. Then it fell apart. He signed the bankruptcy papers on Sept. 22, 1988.

Now, more than a quarter of a century later, Ramsey walked onto the stage in Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City, greeted by a sold-out crowd that jumped to its feet in a standing ovation before he said a word. It was one stop of his “Legacy Journey Live” personal finances event and came on the heels of a grueling promotional tour for a new book, “Smart Money Smart Kids,” that he wrote with his daughter, Rachel Cruze.

The atmosphere in the crowded concert hall had a revival feel. Ramsey takes the role of the itinerate preacher coming to town to preach the word. Except the salvation sought isn’t freedom from sin, but debt.

In a way, the event reflects Ramsey’s personal journey; a journey rooted in biblical principles and applying them to modern money problems.

For some, adding faith to finances might sound like mixing oil and water. And the combination has its critics who believe it skews too closely to the much maligned prosperity gospel and contradicts some religious ideals against accumulating wealth. But for Ramsey fans, the connection between faith and money management is seamless.

Among those fans is Michelle Singletary, a nationally syndicated personal finance columnist for The Washington Post, who finds money is one of the most talked about topics in the Bible: “How do you deal with your money? How do you stay out of debt? Don’t co-sign. Be a cheerful giver. Be careful about making money your god. All of those kinds of things which apply to everybody whether you are religious or not,” she said in a telephone interview. “It just has a deeper meaning for those of us who are believers.”

The mix of faith and finances seems to be resonating with many others, too. Ramsey’s nationally syndicated radio show is heard by 8 million people every week on more than 500 stations. He has had four New York Times best-sellers. His video seminar on finances, Financial Peace University, has been presented to more than 2 million families at nearly 45,000 churches and other organizations.

“I’m blown away at the scale of what has happened in our lives,” he tells the enthusiastic crowd.

Before he took the stage on the evening on May 14, he and his daughter sat down with us to talk about finances, faith and leaving a legacy.

Meeting God

Was your journey toward God simultaneous with getting your financial life back in order?

Dave Ramsey: For me it was a key element, in my particular walk. I always laugh and say I met God on the way up and I got to know him on the way down. And so as I’m crashing and losing everything, a lot of people run to God when they are struggling. And I was no exception. I already knew him, but I ran and got closer. I started reading the word and learning what the Bible says about all kinds of things, money being one of them. And since money was the pain point, I really wanted to know what it said about money. And so it drove me into that. In that sense, our faith was the saving grace; the thing that got us through the hard times. … So, in my particular case, the biblical finance and being tied into my faith walk was my recovery. Not only my financial recovery, but my emotional, marital and everything-else recovery.

How much does people’s relationship with or attitude toward money affect their finances?

Rachel Cruze: As believers, we believe that we are managers of what we have been given. It’s not ours. So when you function in the mentality of a manager versus an owner it changes everything. … So OK, this is God’s money. He has given it to us to manage. So what do we do with it? So that is one relationship that we have when it comes to money.

Dave Ramsey: What your beliefs are about anything creates your actions. What you believe about marriage creates the way you handle your marriage. What you believe about raising kids creates the way you do that. What you believe about your career. What you believe about money. And the problem is some of us have bad beliefs. We believe the wrong things. We believe negative things that have been said to us growing up. In the neighborhood where I grew up it was a rough neighborhood, well, not rough, but it certainly wasn’t upper class or anything. But I remember hearing things like, ‘The little man just can’t get ahead.’ And if you start to believe that, then you know what, you don’t get ahead.

God and gratitude

At the evening event, Ramsey walked around the stage interacting with various props — including an old pedestal kitchen table like the one he had when he went bankrupt. He told the crowd there are three views of wealth. The first he called “pride” — that wealth “is from me.” The second he called the “spirit of poverty” view — that wealth “is evil.” The last, and what he called the correct view of wealth, is “gratitude” — that wealth “is from God.”

“(Saying) ‘It’s my money’ there is kind of a selfishness almost in that,” he said. “And I’ve done that. Lord forgive me.”

Do you ever get concerned that our lives and the economy are based upon spending and consumption?

Dave Ramsey: I think it is the old country song of looking for love in all the wrong places. There is nothing wrong with having nice things, but when you are trying to buy nice things to be happy, you are going to hurt. It’s not going to work. There is a hole in your soul, (Blaise) Pascal said, and it can’t be filled by stuff. There is only one thing that fills that hole, and that’s God. There is a God-sized hole in your soul. … Some people try to throw stuff into the hole: bigger car, bigger house, bigger vacation, more debt associated with it. … And it just doesn’t work for them.

Fame and fortune

The audience showed a deep emotional connection with Ramsey when he grabbed a chain and began winding it around his wrists to show the effects of debt. “We come out with student loan debt. Then we buy a car. Then we buy a house.”

With each mention of a debt, the chain bound him more and more. His voice rose and fell. The crowd responded in kind with laughs and applause. This wasn’t just a show, it was their lives being depicted in cathartic crescendo.

Then, the chain was thrown aside and the shears came out, large scissors Ramsey opened and closed with a loud clippety, clippety staccato. When an audience member handed Ramsey some credit cards to cut up, the crowd yelled and hooted with encouragement.

Ramsey picked one card out, balanced it in the scissor blades before declaring judgment:

“Citibank? What’s in your wallet? Money.” Clip. The two halves fly off onto the stage floor.

He placed another doomed card on the blades.

“Lowes? I love Lowes. They take cash.” Clip. Another card went down.

The crowd shouted as if Ramsey was a champion gladiator who defeated what he and his followers see as an evil foe — credit cards.

Since his appearance, an article in The Daily Beast recounted claims by some former and current employees of Ramsey that he doesn’t tolerate criticism in the workplace. During our interview, he talked about fame and his critics.

Isn’t fame a danger? You have to market your name to do what you do. In a sense you become the product. But isn’t that dangerous for you from a spiritual standpoint?

Dave Ramsey: I think scripture is pretty clear. Wealth, fame and power are tools. And, again, if you continue to realize you are not the owner of it, and you are actually not the creator of it, it’s called a blessing, and the Bible is pretty clear, we were blessed so that we can be a blessing. … I got to tell you there is another side to it, and that is all the hate that you get. The dead animals in your mailbox and the hate. You know the hate mail that you get. It’s strange. It’s very, very strange. But you got to remember, what it comes down to is, they don’t hate me. They don’t know me. There is something broken in their life, and something we said touched a nerve. It touched a hurt place in them and so they erupt and say “Dave Ramsey is evil” or “you must be punished” or “we are going to kill your dog.” It is all these crazy crazies out there. But, again, you got to remember, ten million people have bought my books. If 1 percent of Americans are crazy, that’s a lot of crazy in my life.

Legacy and pain

Kory Scadden and his 14-year-old daughter, Sadie, stood in the lobby and talked about Ramsey’s show during the intermission. People surged by them to get into various lines to buy Ramsey’s books, DVDs and other items for sale with “tonight only” discounts.

Scadden and his wife took a Financial Peace University course at the local St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, and he is excited to have his daughter learn some of the principles that are beginning to turn his financial life around. Sadie thinks so too. “I think it is really good to know what you should do to save up your money so you don’t end up broke,” she said.

“And end up living in your parents’ basement,” Scadden joked.

“Let’s not do that!” she responded.

Scadden, who is a hospice chaplain and also teaches high school religious education classes said he thinks God wants people to become debt free. “When you are taking good care of your money and it is working for you, there is a lot more peace and happiness inside the family,” he says.

What is leaving a legacy to your family all about?

Rachel Cruze: From my perspective, being born the year (my parents) filed for bankruptcy … as they started figuring out God’s and grandma’s ways of handling money, if you will, they were instilling in us kids how to do that through their example. … And because of that, in our family tree, there is a generation now of us kids who don’t have to feel that pain and that hurt.

Losing it

The pain of Ramsey’s personal failuresare in the past, but not forgotten. He brings them out often on his radio show as he advises people who made dumb mistakes. “I’ve got a degree in stupid,” he likes to say.

His faith walk is part of who he is, he doesn’t compartmentalize it, he said. You could take away his success and his core would still be there.

You lost it all once. What if that happened now? If things came crashing down, where would you be?

Dave Ramsey: It would be horrible, obviously. It would hurt. … (But) the second time you get on a bike, after you balanced it the first time, you believe it. And so you balance it again. And so, if I lost everything, as long as I didn’t lose my faith and lose my hope in the process, oh, it’ll be back quick, really, devastatingly fast.

Believing

Throughout the evening, Ramsey and his daughter covered investments and teaching children how to handle money and other topics. The second half of the show moved over the material quickly. It was getting late and tomorrow there was work. And bills to be paid.

“God bless you,” Ramsey said, and he was gone.

People filed out of the concert hall but they were not done. They gathered in small groups in the lobby and even outside and talk about what they learned. Things will get better. They know what to do. They are believers.

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http://christian-daily-news.com/how-dave-ramsey-connects-finances-with-faith/feed/0The World Crisis Predicted in the Bible?http://christian-daily-news.com/the-world-crisis-predicted-in-the-bible/
http://christian-daily-news.com/the-world-crisis-predicted-in-the-bible/#commentsSun, 18 May 2014 08:22:09 +0000http://christian-daily-news.com/?p=13508A feed for 'Christian Daily News'. The World Crisis Predicted in the Bible?:

The world is going through a crisis like it has never experienced before,” says Dr. Hector Caram-Andruet. He has served as a senior executive with Citibank, PepsiCo, and General Foods. His analysis of present economic conditions is troubling.

ORLANDO, FL(ANS) – “The world is going through a crisis like it has never experienced before,” says Dr. Hector Caram-Andruet. He has served as a senior executive with Citibank, PepsiCo, and General Foods. His analysis of present economic conditions is troubling. He points to the astonishing levels of public and private debt and says we are stimulating consumption beyond a sustainable level of personal income.

Book cover

Like a house of cards, the world markets will not remain viable for long. “The easy way out over the long term to print money which inevitably leads to inflation,” says Caram-Andruet. He adds that more people are becoming disillusioned by ineffective leadership.

“It is clear that nations are dealing with the effects of and not the causes of the political, socio-economic, and financial crises while governments incur growing budget deficits and alarmingly increasing national debts,” he states.

In The World Crisis and Bible Prophecies (Creation House), Caram-Andruet points to real world issues to explain how biblical events and warnings are unfolding today. “Greediness and pride are great inducements used by the forces of evil to bring the world to its present condition,” he explains. These, he believes, will bring about a new world order under a centralized power. “The world has already entered a time of deception and confusion,” he goes on to say.

Dr. Hector Caram-Andruet

Caram-Andruet says he doesn’t want to sound like a prophet of doom but adds there is no question except that we are living in increasingly troubled times. He also points out that the U.S. has dropped from number two to eighteen ranking in economic freedom. This is a precursor to losing other vital freedoms but it also spells a weakening economy. “Economic productivity declines the more that government restrictions put pressure on a nation’s freedom to act,” he says. “The result is lower per capita income, employment, and quality of life.”

In his book Caram-Andruet identifies the leading spiritual and economic indicators pointing to massive changes. These include everything from food and water shortages, climate changes, regional wars, and the substitution of physical currencies for electronic currency. But ultimately he believes the problems that plague the world today are spiritual in nature – which is why he wrote a book designed to generate a greater awareness of the connection between world events and end-time warnings.

Don Otis is the founder of Veritas Communications, a publicity agency based in Sandpoint, Idaho. He has worked as a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist with troubled boys and raised three sons of his own. He is the author of Whisker Rubs: Developing the Masculine Identity, Teach Your Children Well, Staying Fit After 40 and Trickle-Down Morality and his articles have appeared in national publications like Focus on the Family magazine. He managed the Voice of Hope Radio stations in Lebanon and helped start Middle East Television and KVOH in Los Angeles. A runner, climber and personal trainer, he has climbed nearly 64 peaks in the U.S. thatare over 14,000 feet. He can be contacted by e-mail at don@veritasincorporated.com

Pope Francis today declared the Internet “a gift from God,” in a statement released by the Vatican to mark the Catholic Church’s World Communications Day. The pope said the Internet “offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity” and that “is something truly good.”

Pope Francis today declared the Internet “a gift from God,” in a statement released by the Vatican to mark the Catholic Church’s World Communications Day.

The pope said the Internet “offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity” and that “is something truly good.”

Citing increased levels of inequality around the world, the pontiff said the media could play a role by “creating a sense of the unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all.”

There are downsides to greater interconnectedness, the pope said, adding that the speed of communication “exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgement.”

He added that by offering a wide variety of ideas, electronic forms of communication
“also enables people to barricade themselves behind sources of information which only confirm their own wishes and ideas, or political and economic interests.”

Digital connectivity, the pontiff added, “can have the effect of isolating us from our neighbors, from those closest to us.”

And while there are drawbacks, the pope said “they do not justify rejecting social media; rather, they remind us that communication is ultimately a human rather than technological achievement.”

He added that we need to “to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm” and that “this calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen.”

The 77-year-old Argentine has proved a somewhat controversial figure, saying, for example, that homosexuals should not be marginalized and that Catholics should reach out to atheists.

In today’s statement, he told his followers that “engaging in dialogue does not mean renouncing our own ideas and tradition.”

Francis said the Internet and social media offered a chance for such a dialogue.

“The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity; a network not of wires but of people,” he said.

A new study by Baylor University scholars of business and sociology found that entrepreneurs pray more frequently, and are more likely to view God as personal and active in their lives. Photo credit: Leonard John Matthews via Photopin, CC

Michael De Groote, Deseret News
WACO, Texas — Valerie Young is an entrepreneur. And she prays.

“I pray every day,” Young says, “…’Thank you (God) for this opportunity to have this livelihood.’ “

A new study by Baylor University scholars of business and sociology found that entrepreneurs pray more frequently, and are more likely to view God as personal and active in their lives than non-entrepreneurs.

The study published in the June 2013 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion also raises questions about the ways in which religion and business intersect and how some religious communities may foster the entrepreneurial spirit and improve the economy.

“Our interest (is) in really exploring an overlooked potential connection to entrepreneurial activity,” says Kevin D. Dougherty, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of sociology at Baylor, a private Baptist university in Waco, Texas. “That is the role of faith and faith communities. Does (faith) inspire people to take chances in the marketplace or is it an impediment?”

Prayer

Dougherty set out to discover how entrepreneurs may differ from the general populace in religious beliefs, behaviors and affiliation. Dougherty says he suspected to find that entrepreneurs are so busy with their businesses that they might not go to religious services as often. “We didn’t find that,” he says. “What we did find was on the flip side.”

The study found that in many religious aspects, America’s entrepreneurs look no different than any other full-time workers. Entrepreneurs attended services at about the same rate as other Americans and believe in God at the same rate as the national average.

But there were a few differences.

The study found entrepreneurs pray more frequently than non-entrepreneurs. While more than half of non-entrepreneurs in the study said they pray a few times a week or less, more than half of entrepreneurs told the researchers they pray every day, and a third said they pray several times a day.

The survey did not ask what people pray about or how long they pray, which Dougherty said he would like to explore in a future study. He speculates entrepreneurs probably pray about the difficulties that come with long hours and starting and running a profitable business.

Jared Rubin, an economic historian at Chapman University, a private university in Orange, Calif. affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), says that it is possible that entrepreneurs pray more frequently because they live more on the edge, and so they may need more comfort.

He also says they may pray more frequently because entrepreneurs take bigger risks.

“The assumption seems to be that entrepreneurs were praying for something,” says Young, an entrepreneur and professional speaker and the author of “The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women.” ” ‘Help my business survive,’ ‘Help me make the payroll,’ ‘Help me with my cashflow.’ “

Young says she considers herself spiritual and often prays — but rarely asks for anything. “To me it is much more about being grateful. My experience with entrepreneurs is they have a different mindset.”

That mindset, she says, tends to be optimistic. Entrepreneurs don’t think in terms of failure, but risk. They take a risk. They try something. If it doesn’t work out, they try something else.

“I have friends that are not entrepreneurs that say they pray for money or to win the lottery,” Young says. “Entrepreneurs see themselves as being ultimately responsible for their success. There would be less of an inclination to ask for things or to put the control outside of yourself.”

A more personal God

The study also found that entrepreneurs tend to understand God as personal and responsive to their needs more than non-entrepreneurs. This finding, that entrepreneurs believe in a personal God who listens and acts, combines with the other finding that they pray more often.

“We found that to be a real novel finding,” Dougherty says. “It challenges the idea that entrepreneurs are people that have shed the confines of religion to forge their own path.”

Instead, there was a connection to religion through more personalized and privatized practices.

The data comes from a national random sample across the spectrum of religious groups such as evangelicals, mainline Protestants and Catholics. The larger data shows that the different faith traditions do not have much effect on who is and who is not an entrepreneur, Dougherty says.

“There is something still unique about the American entrepreneur regardless of the type of faith community they belong to or even if they do not belong to a faith community in terms of (how) they view God and how frequently they pray to this deity,” he says.

Young thinks believing in a personal God is attractive to entrepreneurs because it fits into their mindsets. “As an entrepreneur it does make sense to me,” she says. “We are all guided by something, whether it is your gut. You turn to your gut, you turn to a higher power for guidance to make the right decisions. It involves a personal connection.”

Where they gather together

The survey also asked participants the name and address of their place of worship. About 60 percent were able to give the contact information for where they attended religious services.

The survey also looked at the extent to which entrepreneurs were in faith communities that encouraged, either modestly or strongly, both starting a new business and making a profit in business. The survey asked, for example, “How is starting a business talked about, if at all, in your place of worship?” and “How is making a profit in business talked about, if at all, in your place of worship?”

Dougherty said it’s not surprising that entrepreneurs are more likely to belong to congregations that encourage these things. “No other published research has ever documented this,” he says. “And the results raise all sorts of interesting implications.”

Dougherty wants to do further research to determine if some faith communities inspire people to take chances in the marketplace and start new businesses. “We think that is really fascinating,” he says. “And for a country coming out of a recession, if that is true, then the 300,000 faith communities that dot our landscape will become even more important as potential catalysts for driving economic recovery and growth.”

Last summer the Baylor research team traveled the country and conducted about 200 interviews at eight different faith communities to find out why entrepreneurs were in churches that were more pro-business. They asked about how and if their faith communities have inspired workers and entrepreneurs in their work. “So very soon we’ll have an answer to that question,” Dougherty says, “and I think it will be an interesting one for people.”

This can-do attitude would be a very entrepreneurial, according to Young.

“Entrepreneurs think things are possible,” Young says, “and they have faith that they are going to figure it out as they go along.”

A bipartisan accord to reopen the U.S. government and avoid a debt default is taking shape in the Senate as potential U.S. insolvency looms and the federal shutdown enters a third week.

House and Senate Republicans are expected to meet Tuesday to discuss a potential deal that could end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling.

After a day of talks on Monday, both Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell expressed optimism that a deal could be reached.

Reid told reporters late Monday that there was “tremendous progress” towards a deal. He cautioned that Congress is “not there yet” but predicted Tuesday could be a “bright day.”

McConnell said he shares Reid’s optimism.

Any deal would have to be approved by both the House and the Senate before being signed by the president.

What Does a U.S. Government Shutdown Mean?

Large parts of the federal government need to be funded each year to operate

If Congress cannot agree on how to fund them, those parts of the government shut down

During a shutdown, federal workers are separated into excepted and non-excepted employees

Excepted must continue to work, and will be paid when Congress funds the government again

Non-excepted are furloughed and not guaranteed to receive back-pay

Parts of the government dealing with national security and public safety and those with independent funding like the Postal Service continue to operate

Other parts shut down, including National Parks, the EPA and the processing of visa and passport applications

The last government shutdown lasted 21 days and ended on January 6, 1996

The Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, was spotted Monday leaving McConnell’s Senate offices.

At the center of the current talks is a proposal to increase the federal government’s debt limit into next year, along with a short-term measure to reopen the government and allow the start of budget negotiations.

If the debt ceiling is not raised by Thursday, the United States may not be able to pay all its bills. President Obama has said this would be a catastrophe for the world economy.

It is unclear if Congress can meet the Thursday deadline even if top Senate Democrats and Republican leaders reach agreement. Conservative hardliners such as Texas Republican Ted Cruz might force a delay in a final vote.

The House also would need to back the plan. Republican leaders are under strong pressure from conservatives who are reluctant to make concessions. Many of them say they will refuse to back any deal that fails to reform President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Accommodating the religious needs of a workforce can boost morale and the bottom line.

By Matthew Brown, Deseret News
After a lengthy recruiting effort, executives of a global financial firm couldn’t understand why a prized potential hire went to the competition. Was it the pay? The perks? The people? The location?

“She said that she found out the company had a reputation that is was not hijab-friendly,” Joyce Dubensky, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, recalled from her discussion with the executives. “She wore (the head covering for Muslim women) and she didn’t want to go to a workplace where she wouldn’t feel welcome.”

Dubensky likes to tell that story to underscore a point her organization stresses when training companies and organizations on embracing diversity: Accommodating the religious needs of a workforce can boost morale and the bottom line.

Dubensky said business is finally responding. She cited research by DiversityInc that found 78 percent of the organization’s Top 50 diversified companies now offer floating religious holidays to employees compared with 42 percent nine years ago, and 70 percent provide prayer rooms today compared with 32 percent eight years ago. Awareness by employers and employees alike may continue to increase as America’s religious landscape becomes more diverse and issues of religious freedom arise as a result.

“I’ve always called religion the stepchild of the diversity and inclusion movement,” she said. “It has been mostly ignored in the workplace (compared to race, ethnicity and gender.) But, increasingly people are talking about it and now they are starting to do something about it.”

Faith-work connection

Why it has taken so long for faith to be recognized as something employees can bring to the workplace is a mystery.

Religion and disability hold the distinction of being the only areas employers must accommodate under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, meaning they must ensure that the disabled can perform their assignments and workers can observe their faith. And based on surveys by the Pew Research Center and Gallup showing 77 percent to 79 percent of Americans identify with a faith tradition, there are a lot of religious people in the workplace.

Yet religion has remained the proverbial elephant in the room at the office — a topic human resources people feared was too sensitive and personal to address from a policy standpoint and yet loaded with liability if someone was offended by an insensitive remark or unintended impact of a company practice.

“Faith has existed in the workplace for years, but what’s new is that only now are people doing something about it,” Dubensky said.

Employers have learned the hard way that ignoring the faith needs of their workers exposes them to labor enforcement penalties. Statistics from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission show that from 1997 to 2012, religious discrimination complaints soared 123 percent, with a high of 4,151 complaints lodged in 2011.

The EEOC statistics also indicate employees have been slow to understand their rights to live out their beliefs at work, as long as it doesn’t become an unreasonable burden on their employer.

Dubenksy said 9/11 was a turning point that put a bright light on religious discrimination against Muslims in the workplace. As a result of the complaints, awareness by employees and employers of religious rights in the workplace took hold and has grown ever since.

Though respect for religion at work has increased, the connection for individuals between their faiths and their jobs has always been strong. A recent study by social scientists at Brandeis University showed faith is a powerful influence on the choices religious people make about their occupations, as well as to where they live, who they marry and how many children they have.

Fifty-six percent of those who said religion was very or extremely important to them said their faith was a factor in their career choice. Of those who said religion was somewhat important, half as many — 27 percent — said faith factored into their decision on an occupation.

“People who place a high premium on religion are going to factor religion into their decision-making and choice of jobs,” said Emily Sigalow, an author of the study published in the June 2012 issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. “Faith informs and motivates decisions in complicated ways.”

The whole person

An example of that complicated connection is the experience of Scott Thompson, a 48-year-old public relations professional who recently took a new job handling media relations and marketing for a hospital network in Tacoma, Wash.

Thompson had been searching for new employment for about a year. After his interview with Franciscan Health System, a series of events — from the job offer to selling his old house in Utah to moving his expectant wife and 3-year-old son into another home in Washington — took place so quickly and smoothly that he is now certain prayers were answered and divine intervention was at play.

“I do pray and have a strong belief in God and seek his counsel,” said Thompson, who was raised a Baptist but does not currently attend a church. “It didn’t click at the time, but when I look back at all that had to happen to be here, I think there had to be some divine plan. This is where I am meant to be.”

His current employer is affiliated with Catholic Health Initiatives. Thompson said the culture of his new job is a stark difference from his previous employer, where he never felt like he was progressing.

“Faith probably did play a part in realizing it was a better fit,” Thompson said reflecting on the change. “Here, they treat you as a whole person and not just as an employee.”

But religious affiliates aren’t the only organizations that consider all aspects of an employee’s life, including the spiritual. Andy Newland, president of Denver-based Hercules Industries, said the regional heating, ventilation and air conditioning supplier understands that work is not the top priority of its employees.

“Their family and their faith are the No. 1 priority in their lives. So you acknowledge that and allow your employees the freedom to participate in whatever activities their faith might require,” Newland said. “That does go a long way toward team building and productivity. It is just common sense. But in today’s biz environment, that gets lost in the demands for 80-hour work weeks.”

He explained that Hercules has a responsibility to respect its employees’ commitments to their family and faith while providing a constructive atmosphere at work that encourages working together.

“It makes them more efficient workers and better people outside of work,” he said. “We know that faith is important to us as business owners. So, if it’s important to us, it’s important to our employees.”

Free exercise rights

Hercules is one of nearly 30 companies that have sued the government over the Affordable Care Act’s mandate to provide their employees contraceptive coverage. The companies argue that covering birth control directly or indirectly violates their constitutional right to practice their religion.

The increased emphasis of private enterprise on the religious needs of employees is putting a finer point on a key issue in the lawsuits: Does a commercial enterprise have rights of religious conscience?

In legal pleadings, the government has argued that the business owners have the right to practice their faith but those rights don’t extend to the corporate entity.

“By definition, a secular employer does not engage in any ‘exercise of religion,’” Department of Justice attorneys said in a motion to dismiss Hercules’ complaint. “Having chosen the secular, for-profit path, the company may not impose its owners’ religious beliefs on its employees.”

But devout business owners argue how they conduct their business is a reflection of their religious beliefs, which is why they find providing birth control through their health plan a violation of their right to live out their faith.

“Faith plays a role in the lives of believers no matter what they are doing,” said attorney Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Hercules. “It’s not possible to declare areas of life, like business or education or health care, as areas where religion is banished by the government.”

The federal circuit courts are split on the question, which means the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually have to determine whether religious freedom extends to the operations of a secular corporation.

Meantime, Dubensky predicts companies will continue take a proactive approach to addressing the religious needs of their employees.

“We are getting more and more calls and companies are looking for information on a range of things,” she said. “In the next 15 years you will see an explosion of accommodations.”

Protests outside the Cyprus parliament in Nicosia greeted Tuesday's debate and vote on the bailout package. The international bailout package involved taxing ordinary depositors to pay part of the bill. The plan would have hit bank depositors with a one-time tax on their savings.

The international bailout package involved taxing ordinary depositors to pay part of the bill. The plan would have hit bank depositors with a one-time tax on their savings.

However, after hours of debate, the Cyprus parliament rejected the bailout deal with 36 Members of Parliament casting “no” votes, and 19 abstentions.

Prior to the vote, eyewitnesses reported chanted slogans like: “Independence, freedom, democracy.” After the vote, dozens of tweets indicated the chants had morphed into singing.

In an effort to stave off panic, banks remained closed through Thursday. Then came the rumor (apparently unverified) that Cyprus’s finance minister resigned and that President Nicos Anastasiades planned to abstain from the vote, and tensions ratcheted higher.

Now, Cyprus and its partners would have to go back to the drawing board. There have been suggestions that bank runs are possible now and the European Central Bank could halt in liquidity to Cypriot banks. The reality is that Cyprus now faces bankruptcy and a potential exit from the euro.

The international office of SAT-7 is located in the capital city of Nicosia. The leadership team is actually in Cyprus with budget meetings this week, although this was planned well in advance of the vote. SAT-7 USA president Rex Rogers, speaking from Limassol, says, “Our financial people, in terms of our ministry being based here, have been watching this with the area banks for some time. We’ve already taken a number of steps, several weeks back.”

Those measures were taken to safeguard funds given to keep SAT-7 moving forward. Their international identity is what’s mainly protecting them now. Their funds are also international and so spread out across the network. So, explains Rogers, it alleviates the impact of what’s happening in Cyprus. “At the moment, we’re not being caught in the midst of this. On the other hand, whatever they decide to do in the Parliament could end up costing us some money, mainly because it’s going to cost everybody money.”

That’s not to say that austerity measures, in whatever form they eventually take, won’t impact the ministry. Rogers explains, “To participate in the bailout, it’s going to cost the Cypriot citizens an additional tax. That includes organizations, and that’s where monies that could get transferred in could be subject to some kinds of levies. As I say, we could lose some monies in the process.”

Lawmakers are going to have to figure out how to cobble together a packag that will please both its citizens and the European Central Bank. It’s not an enviable job. Rogers says, “Nobody likes so-called ‘austerity’ programs. On the other hand, when you get upside-down financially, you’ve got to bite the bullet and do some things, and that’s what’s happening with respect to the so-called ‘bail out.’”

SAT-7 broadcasts Christian satellite television 24/7 throughout more than seventy countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. The network supports five channels: SAT-7 ARABIC and SAT-7 KIDS in Arabic, SAT-7 PARS in Farsi, SAT-7 TURK in Turkish, and the newest Arabic family channel, SAT-7 PLUS.

Working in a region characterized by high illiteracy rates and closed countries, SAT-7 broadcasts uncensored messages of the love, forgiveness, and hope of Christ to more than 17 million regular viewers–women and children, rich and poor, urban and rural–in the privacy of their homes. SAT-7′s convergence of theology, technology, and timeliness positions it for greater impact for such a time as this.

In a time of financial upheaval, the ministry needs to keep the funding as efficient as possible. Their voice speaks at a time when others can’t be heard. This applies to the coverage of things like Arab Spring, as well as holidays.

For example, while most Christians in the West are looking forward to celebrating Easter, Iranians all over the world are preparing for the Persian New Year, or Norouz, which falls on 21st March. Exchanging gifts and visiting family and friends are an important part of the festivities, as well as preparing a table set with seven items starting with the letter S in Persian, including samanu (a sweet pudding), serkeh (vinegar) and sÄ«b (apples).

SAT-7 PARS will be marking the New Year with a special live program from its studio in London. It will be a double celebration as the New Year program will be the first broadcast from the studio after several months of refurbishment.

The channels provide a platform to address spiritual and emotional needs around the world. The greatest challenge to keeping all of them going is funding. A disruption could mean an interruption in programming and lost Gospel opportunity.

It’s an impact that’s not lost on the ministry team leaders, notes Rogers. “SAT-7 is a ministry. All the money goes to the mission of the ministry and the idea of sharing the Gospel with people throughout in the Middle East.” They’ll need prayer for wisdom as they navigate through uncertain times that face the ministry in the days ahead.

]]>http://christian-daily-news.com/cyprus-protests-accompany-vote-on-bailout-package/feed/0New Genealogy Research App may be a Game Changerhttp://christian-daily-news.com/newgenealogy-research-app-may-be-a-game-changer/
http://christian-daily-news.com/newgenealogy-research-app-may-be-a-game-changer/#commentsTue, 12 Feb 2013 16:23:09 +0000http://christian-daily-news.com/?p=8606A feed for 'Christian Daily News'. New Genealogy Research App may be a Game Changer:

Otter Creek Holdings, a Utah-based technology company that develops genealogy software and websites, announces a new smartphone app that enables users to get instant genealogical information just by snapping a photo of a gravestone.

By Jacob Hancock, Feb., 11th, 2013
CINCINNATI — It’s difficult not to pause and wonder while walking through a cemetery, at least momentarily, what kind of life stories might exist behind each cold, weathered gravestone.

And until recently, that’s essentially all a person could do — wander and wonder.

But Otter Creek Holdings, a Utah-based technology company that develops genealogy software and websites, says it’s about to change the game.

At a monument trade-show in Cincinnati on Saturday, the company presented a genealogy gathering tool it says could eventually render matrix barcodes, or QR Codes, nearly obsolete in the interment industry with its soon-to-be released smartphone application, “Legacy Mobile.”

Many gravestone makers, including a product owned by Otter Creek Holdings called mylegacymemorial.com, currently offer a service of attaching matrix barcodes to gravestones so family members or other passersby can scan the barcode from their smartphone onsite and be directed to an interactive memorial website page.

And although such monument pages have obvious advantages that make them nearly impossible to replace in the foreseeable future — families can personalize and edit those pages with their own photos, videos and stories — Otter Creek’s “Legacy Mobile” app opens the possibility for anyone to pull up a webpage of genealogy information on any gravesite in a cemetery.

That’s it. Point your smartphone. Shoot. Satisfy your curiosity.

Makers of the app say a decent image of the gravestone is all it takes to connect a user to one or more genealogy profiles about the individual. At least that’s the intended simplicity for users.

It’s a touch more complicated for developers behind the digital curtain, admits Hudson Gunn, vice president of the company’s business development. “Actually, it’s a logistics nightmare to build such a custom platform to do all that it does.”

Instead of searching “a billion records at a time” the app first uses GPS metadata from uploaded photos to filter search results by location, usually by cemetery or city, Gunn told KSL in an interview from the Monument Builders of North America Full Industry Show in Ohio.

After the app drastically narrows the search to perhaps a couple hundred possible candidates in the area, a heavy mix of proprietary algorithms kick in and image recognition gears start to churn. Using optical character recognition, Gunn says the app compares the uploaded gravestone image and its text to an existing, and still growing, gallery of gravesite monument photos, especially from sites like the company’s recently acquired billiongraves.com, a site that took on a healthy 30,000 new users this past year.

But using geocode to grab a location and image recognition science to compare text and photos — both technologies that have been around for a few years — is only half of the app’s recipe. The other portion that could make it the next big thing is wrapped up in the number of personal contacts Devin Taylor, the company’s CEO, has initiated over the years in his effort to connect with more and more partners. After all, the app would be worthless without a mega-database to query for results.

Taylor’s portfolio of data-sharing partners includes familysearch.org, the largest genealogy database in the world, and ancestry.com, the largest for-profit genealogy company in the world.

If a user takes a photo of an unknown gravestone, the app will ask the user if he or she would like to create a record for that person. And because it will be saving submitted photos and collecting more records from crowdsourcing, Gunn says it will grow smarter and more robust over time. He expects it to expand by an additional 7 million records by year’s end.

Gunn said the app doesn’t include advertisements — something usually splashed on most free apps. And he said he expects it to be available for download within the week.

Facebook users who decide to unfriend someone should do so with caution, as it may trigger a series of real-life consequences which reach beyond cyberspace, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Denver.

Facebook users who decide to unfriend someone should do so with caution, as it may trigger a series of real-life consequences which reach beyond cyberspace, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Denver.

Based on 582 survey responses gathered via Twitter, the study found that 40 percent of people would avoid anyone who unfriended them on Facebook in real life. Half of the respondents said they would not avoid the person, and the remaining 10 percent were unsure.

The survey found more women than men would avoid contact with the person who unfriended them. That surprised researchers, who were unable to find any reasons behind the difference between genders.

Social media websites have opened a new chapter in human relationships. In the past, making a friend involved face to face communication and interaction; friends were an actual physical part of your social circle.

Sites like Facebook allow users to become friends with people they’ve never met and might never meet in person.

This past October, Facebook alone logged its one billionth user.

Social media websites have been changing the dynamics in interpersonal communication as well. Traditional face-to-face dialog has given way to quick online interactions that have their own set of rules, language and even etiquette – called ‘netiquette’.

“People think social networks are just for fun,” said study author Christopher Sibona, a doctoral student at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. “But, in fact, what you do on those sites can have real-world consequences.”

Sibona found there were six factors which predicted whether someone would avoid a person who unfriended them.

♥ If the person discussed the event after it happened

♥ If the emotional response to the unfriending was extremely negative

♥ If the person unfriended believed the action was due to offline behavior

♥ The geographical distance between the two – if they lived close to each other and there’s a chance of physical contact

♥ If the troubled relationship was discussed prior to the unfriending

♥ How strong the person valued the relationship before the unfriending

Those who thought the unfriending was punishment for behaving badly offline also tended to avoid further contact with the ‘unfriender’

Compared to real-life relationships, the cost of maintaining online relationships is extremely low, according to Sibona. “In the real world, you have to talk to people, go see them to maintain face-to-face relationships. That’s not the case in online relationships. ”

Sibona also points out that real-life friendships often end by just fading away as people drift apart. However, an online friendship can come to an abrupt end when one friend unilaterally declares the friendship is over.

“Since it’s done online, there is an air of unreality to it, but in fact there are real-life consequences,” Sibona said. “We are still trying to come to grips as a society on how to handle elements of social media. The etiquette is different and often quite stark.”

In 2010, Sibona authored another Facebook-based study which examined why people are unfriended on Facebook. He found four top reasons for unfriending:

According to Sibona, past research shows individuals who’ve been ostracized from a group of friends experience lower moods, have less of a feeling of belonging, and feel a sense of loss of control and reduced self-esteem.

“People who are unfriended may face similar psychological effects, because unfriending may be viewed as a form of social exclusion,” Sibona said. “The study makes clear that unfriending is meaningful and has important psychological consequences for those to whom it occurs.”

Imagine shopping for clothes online and being able to run your hand across the screen on your computer or smartphone to feel the fabrics. That kind of simulation technology could be available within the next five years.

Imagine shopping for clothes online and being able to run your hand across the screen on your computer or smartphone to feel the fabrics. That kind of simulation technology could be available within the next five years.

“We’re talking about reinventing the way computers operate and you interact with them as humans,” says IBM Vice President Bernie Meyerson.

Extending our sense of touch is one of five innovatons IBM believes will change the world in the next five years, according to the company’s annual “Five in Five” list.

Smart machines will also soon be able to listen to the environment and highlight the sounds we care about most. For instance, an advanced speech recognition system will tell new parents why their baby is crying.

In the near future, personal computers will be able to do more than recognize images and visual data. Their built-in cameras will be able to analyze features such as colors, and understand the meaning of visual media, such as knowing how to sort family photos.

Smart machines will also be able to smell. If you sneeze on your computer or cell phone, tiny sensors embedded in the machine will be able to analyze thousands of molecules in your breath.

“It can give you an alarm and say; ‘Hey, you may not feel sick yet, but you have an infection, you must go see your doctor immediately,’” Meyerson says.

IBM scientists are also developing a system which can experience flavors to be used by chefs to create recipes. It breaks down ingredients to their molecular level and blends them to create the most popular flavors and smells, even as it helps us mind our waistlines.

“It can recommend to you the food you love to taste, but it can also keep track of the caloric limits, whether you have limits on the fat or cholesterol you can eat,” Meyerson says. “So it strikes that ideal balance between the best possible taste and the best possible nutritional outcome.”

One of the most impressive things about the IBM list, says Georgetown University computer science professor Mark Maloof, is how powerful these tiny,smart devices are becoming:

“I think one of the surprises in that list is how a lot of very sophisticated computational methods for doing say for example, hearing and vision, have been implemented on these tiny small mobile devices.”

Maloof hopes the advances will encourage more students to study science, technology, engineering and math, preparing them to play a role in future innovations.

“It’s going to be exciting to see what young people do with the increased availability of mobile platforms and networking and computing power,” he says.

He believes there’s little doubt advances in computer technology over the next five years will make what now seems like science fiction a part of our everyday lives.